Real Fighting in Wisconsin is Between Cruz and Kasich

Ted Cruz wants to be seen as the only Washington Insider left in the race by asking the Establishment to embrace him. This move comes despite spending his career as the Anti-Republican Republican in the U.S Senate. That’s why Cruz wants John Kasich, the preferred insider Establishment choice, out of the race. But now, so does Donald Trump.

Mr. Cruz repeatedly has called for Mr. Kasich to get out of the race and clear the way for a one-on-one contest between himself and Mr. Trump.

Now, Trump wants Kasich out, too, going as far as saying the Republican National Committee should force him out.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ohio Gov. John Kasich to drop out of the GOP nominating contest, accusing him of siphoning away potential Trump voters and telling reporters that he expressed his displeasure while meeting with Republican National Committee officials last week. . .

Mr. Kasich is mathematically unable to amass the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot. He is holding out hope that he can peel off enough votes from Mr. Trump to force a contested convention in July in Cleveland, and then broker a deal to capture the nomination. . .

“We’ll win some districts in Wisconsin. We will move to Pennsylvania, where I’m basically in a statistical tie with Trump. And when we go to New York and everywhere else, we’re going to pick up delegates,” said Mr. Kasich.

However, Cruz is hoping he’ll win the nomination in the remaining states, before the convention. And his path to the nomination is very narrow, so he can’t afford to lose a few delegates here and there.

That brings us to Wisconsin. The State likes poking its finger in the eye of common wisdom. So the “Birthplace of the Union Movement” became an important “union buster,” and it now wants to give the “presumed nominee,” Trump, a large loss. That’s why the nastiness in Wisconsin is between Cruz and Kasich.

We have Cruz saying, “I approve this message,” which claims that Kasich took money from a company and then gave them tax breaks.

And they’re spending $800 million to run this basketball ad, “Kasich Won’t Play,” that is confusingly trying to use the pun “won’t play in Peoria,” which is in Illinois, anyway—and claims that Kasich is liberal(?). Some stations refused to run it, so it was pulled off the air and edited.

“I think it’s funny,” Kasich told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” “It’s what you put up with in a campaign and of course that distorts virtually everything.”

Meanwhile, a Kasich Super PAC is borrowing Trump’s phrase, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” in an ad, referring to Cruz’ treatment of Ben Carson, among other things.

Clearly, Super PACs are destroying our political system, since they are not allowed to run positive ads—so all those millions of dollars go into tearing down our candidates.

That’s why this is such an important development: Kasich calls for his own PAC to stop running the “Lyin’ Ted” ad. A report on Kasich’s request from Fox News:

John Kasich on Friday said he wants the super PAC supporting him to pull an ad that refers to Ted Cruz as “lyin’ Ted”. . .

“I don’t run that organization, but I’ve expressed my displeasure, and they’re going to — we can’t communicate with them directly — but I don’t like that word, and I’ve told them that,” Kasich continued. “And I said it last night on television, and I would hope that they will not use that word and they’ll take it down.”

It’s a step in the right direction. It’s exactly what Ted Cruz should have done the first time he saw the heavy run of the ad attacking Trump’s wife. Yes, legally, candidates can’t “communicate directly” with a Super PAC, but that doesn’t mean they should sit back and smile while a candidate is smeared in their name.

Goethe Behr is a Contributing Editor and Moderator at Election Central. He started out posting during the 2008 election, became more active during 2012, and very active in 2016. He has been a political junkie since the 1950s and enjoys adding a historical perspective.